Radio Road Which tuner to get and getting the most from it. Thank God, for the radio!

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RE: Rel Precedent for President or lot of...hype

Posted by Chef Henry (A) on February 22, 2008 at 10:16:59

In Reply to: RE: Rel Precedent for President or lot of...hype posted by Neff on February 22, 2008 at 06:31:53:

In the middle '70s, I was employed as a salesman at Tech Hi-Fi in Paramus, New Jersey. Many of the best tuners available at the time were on display. I brought my REL to work one day, and patched it into the board beside the others. The REL was not only in a class by itself in its ability to pull in and separate channels, but its quality of sound blew everything else away.

I try to avoid the use of superlatives in describing audio equipment, holding them in reserve for those rare items that actually merit them. The REL is at the top of that list. The difference in listening quality was so great that every employee and customer who was present were in unanimous agreement. It is interesting that not a single soul noticed that the REL was receiving and playing back in mono, while all the others were in stereo. (Make of this what you will-if we were in a poor area for reception, I might wonder if this conferred an edge on the REL. This was, however, Paramus, New Jersey-12 minutes from Washington Heights.)

I loved my Fisher FMR-1, which is the tres cool rack-mount version of Avery's finest tuner, the FM-1000. It is the very tuner that is on the Fisher Doc's web site, and after 20 years, I still kick myself in the ass for trading him for it. The 22-tube REL, however, is a horse of a different color. I just recently became aware that there was an REL model predating the Precedent. It's called the Green Giant, and the guy who posted its picture said that it is even better than the Precedent.

Given the execrable state of programming and the medium's probable demise in the not too distant future, twenty-two hundred dollars strikes me as a a lot of jack for a tuner. If I was flush, however, and determined to have the best, the choice for me would be clear.

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